?”Why did Zama’tar call me Johnathan?”

Battered and bloodied, she struggled to voice the words in her throat. Pain ran through her body, and the fear of death seemed real. “Z-Zama’tar was… sent over a century ago!”

Sylvester pressed his knee on her belly even more. “And?”

“I… I don’t know… I wasn’t the Empress. But I…” She groaned in pain. “I know where you might find answers.”

Sylvester tried to sniff for any lies in her words but found none of them. She genuinely appeared frightened, far from what he expected from an Empress. But that begged the question of where the real Empress was.

“Where is the answer?”

“In the palace above,” she insisted.

‘No scent of lies.’ Sylvester noticed and retreated from pressing her down. ‘I hope this trip wasn’t a waste of my time.’

“Stand up,” he ordered her while healing all her wounds as if nothing had happened. In a display of his control over his abilities, he even cleaned the bloodstains from her face and hair, and fixed all the damaged parts of her robes too.

“How did you…?” She looked down. “I saw no magic initiation.”

“I’ve grown beyond what you consider the limit, Empress,” Sylvester replied and stood up. “Now, lead the way. If you try to act smart, I’ll make you watch as I ruin your world.”

She nodded seriously and activated her armor, which covered her entirely in black again, finally erecting the horns on her forehead. She looked far more formidable like that, and certainly had the aura of a ruler.

“I know, Sylvester Maximilian,” she responded and started walking as the dome they were in started turning back to normal. “I wasn’t the one who invited you, but the prophecies talked about you plenty.”

Sylvester didn’t respond to her attempts to ease the air. His mood was spoiled already as he considered the worst possible scenarios.

…

Somewhere across the cosmos, outside the darkness that held the fabric of reality. There were two beings who stood above all, the survivors of an eternally long war that left only them as the victors.

“So he has manifested in your realm now,” said one voice of consciousness.

In the resounding echoes of the divine, the other voice resonated in harmonious accord, “This is the most amusing phase yet.”

“Veiled from my omniscient gaze for this long, he shall atone for the grievous disgrace.”

“Do not—this has been the rule. We are to observe and await the unfolding of the path ahead.”

The voices receded back into a silent yet intelligible slumber afterward. Their vision spread everywhere, their senses taking notice of every minuscule change. Boundless power and limitless age, they were the ones above all.

Such was the fact of their existence they could recall.

…

Sylvester, unaware of the curious gazes on him, walked behind the Empress. After climbing the stairs back up all the way to the ground floor, they arrived in the regular hallways of the palace.

Towering columns adorned with intricate carvings rose majestically on either side, whispering tales of regal history. Gilded tapestries, depicting the exploits of bygone rulers, hung gracefully, catching the soft glow of ornate chandeliers.

The soldiers, servants, and others bowed deeply to the Empress and stepped aside as if in fright. The soldiers also saluted each time, guarding every corner and wall. The deeper they walked into the palace, the more extravagant it became. The walls showed countless sceneries from history, which Sylvester tried to memorize as they told him about the world.

“Where are you leading me?” Sylvester asked.

“The room that I was never allowed to enter,” the Empress replied and kept walking, ignoring everyone that came their way. “I didn’t mean to be deceitful. I’m genuinely hopeful for your cooperation in this hidden war.”

“With your strength, you won’t be able to perceive them even if they were standing before you,” Sylvester replied apathetically. “They can control time as if it were a child’s toy. They can control the souls, the lives, and reality itself by their will. You haven’t even reached the peak of this world’s power.”

She turned a bit disappointed hearing that, apparent from the way her shoulders loosened. “I have no other choice but to do anything I can to save this world… this is all I have.”

“That feeling is mutual.”

They continued to walk for a long time. Then, the Empress took a turn and entered a guarded door. But the amusing thing was just how many doors they had to cross, and how many keys the Empress had in her possession.

They entered the first guarded door and into a massive hall. From there, they entered a side room which looked like an office. There, the Empress inserted a key in a hidden slot on one of the bookcases, opening the entire wall like it was a door.

From there, they walked into another room, seemingly full of dirt. But just like that, they kept crossing from one room to another, sometimes even climbing downstairs, finding hidden keyholes and doors in the ceilings, walls, or the floor.

They finally arrived at the last one after crossing what seemed like five dozen doors. It was inside an absolutely dark room with no airflow anywhere. Sylvester was using his light magic to make light, so they saw a very ordinary wooden door with a marker on it—Stay Out.

The Empress fumbled with the keys and inserted the last one in the door. “We both are the first ones to look inside this room. Be careful. I don’t know what she placed in there.”

“She?” Sylvester caught on.

“The previous Empress.” The Empress turned the key, and a click resounded. The door looked loose and ready to be opened.

Clack! 𝘳𝑎.𝒸ℴ

“Hold your breath,” Sylvester ordered her and walked in front of her as a shield.

He slowly opened the door, pushing it carefully with his palm, oozing light into the dark space. No dust blew at his face, nor any scent that could be harmful. He tried to sense any magic inside, but that wasn’t to be found either.

“It’s safe.” He fully opened the door and stepped inside. “And small.”

Blink!

They suddenly looked up as a light turned on, illuminating the entire room. Barely bigger than ten feet by ten feet, its walls were covered with countless papers stuck on it, photographs, and markers, with red lines of threads traveling from one point to another.

Sylvester easily knew what it was. “It’s a crazy wall.”

“What’s that?”

Relaxing, he walked closer to the wall and tried to analyze everything. At first, he found the writing on the papers very confusing. But then, he remembered something, and it almost burst his heart in shock.

“I-It’s Russian!”

The walls of text, the papers everywhere, they all had just one language. The images of people, sometimes hand-drawn and sometimes photographs, had names under them. The dates also denoted the time.

“What year is it here?” He questioned frantically.

“It’s year ten thousand and nine of the Void,” Empress Zenith answered. “What is Russian? Can you read this?”

Sylvester silently stared at the wall and followed the red lines. It was something he had made a few times in the past, especially nearing the end of his life, in order to find the traitor—the crazy wall, or also known as an evidence board.

“I can… read this,” Sylvester replied and, like a child who saw candy, stared at everything and read it. The room was small, but since all of its walls were covered, and even behind the door, there was so much material to digest.

“This! Who is this?!” He pointed at a sketch of something. It didn’t look like a human.

“That’s the ancient sketch of Void, the god of our world,” she answered, following his gaze everywhere. “But why did she put grandfather’s photograph here?”

Sylvester ignored her babbling and made notes in his head. ‘The lines all direct towards the top, but only three walls seem connected. The fourth wall is a separate investigation on its own.’

Obsessed, he kept walking around, comprehending. Hours passed, and since the Empress didn’t understand anything, she just sat down in the middle of the floor, waiting for Sylvester to say something.

“Hmm?” He mumbled and finished the first three walls. “It seems your Void was fighting against the two above as well. Your sister, did she write all this? How strong was she? Where is she?”

“Big sister is stronger than you, I’m sure of it. She wrote on this wall but never let anyone inside, not even me.” With her armor removed, her yellow eyes sparkled fondly. “I don’t know about her age, though. It must be more than a thousand, wait… She isn’t my direct sister… No, she is probably my ancestral aunt or something. I just call her sister since she always looks so pretty.”

“Did she get married?” Sylvester inquired with a palm on his chest.

“Never, she hates the idea of marriage.”

‘As expected.’ Sylvester hummed, now almost sure that it was his Diana.

“Where is she?”

“Downstairs,” Zenith answered and then asked. “How do you know this language?”

Sylvester sighed and looked at the last wall. He followed the red lines as the wall had the least content. There were a few sketches, but no photographs. To his surprise, even his own name was there, as well as other Popes. Up and up, it eventually landed at a mark named Solis.

That encouraged him to look further up since it didn’t make any sense.

Blink!

And right when his gaze stared towards the ceiling, the lights from above turned off, and they lit up from the floor.

There were three massive words written above, enough to throw Sylvester to the floor.

“Void is Solis!”

_________________

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